Privacy Policy

Code of Ethics

I adhere to the Ethical Framework of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy Ethical Principles and Code of Professional Conduct and the Code of Ethics of the National Register of Hypnotherapists and Psychotherapists.

Confidentiality

Trust established between client and therapist is an important factor in the therapeutic process and all information disclosed in our work together is treated as confidential. It is not permissible for either the therapist or the client to make public the content of our instant message or email exchanges or share them with a third party. There are three main exceptions to confidentiality.

1. If you tell me about the risk of death, serious injury, serious criminal activity or serious harm involving you or another person then it will not be possible for me to guarantee confidentiality. This means that if I believe you are a danger to yourself or others I reserve the right to contact outside agencies such as the GP - I would only take this step after prior discussion with you wherever possible.

2. Supervision is a requirement of the professional bodies that I am a member of and is intended to ensure that the quality of my work meets a high standard. My supervisor is another therapist who adheres to the same code of ethics as me. All details identifying my clients are excluded from the conversation. which focuses on the process of counselling, rather than content. Clients are normally referred to by first names only.

3. When due legal process or by statute I am required to (examples are the Prevention of Terrorism Act or cases of fraud being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office, etc.).

Data Protection – my records, including case notes, are kept on computer. The notes are password and encryption protected and I am registered under the Data Protection Act. Information is held for six years and then securely destroyed/erased. The notes are not available to any other person. My Data Protection Registration Number is ZA110983.

You should be aware that all electronic information can be accessed (under court order or the terrorism act) by UK police and other government authorities and that I have no control or influence to prevent such access should it be required by these authorities.

For email therapy I recommend the use of an encrypted email service such as Proton Mail, alternatively if you wish to use your regular email provider I suggest that you write the content of your session as a word document which can be password protected and sent to me as an attachment, sending the password in a separate email